It's more a ceremonial thing, since as the headline plainly indicates, his son, until today known only as Placeholder Buffet, has been waiting to receive a name for 71 years

He's there to maintain the very unique culture of the company. I think it's sort of like if they have his son there he of all people should know Buffett's/Berkshire's culture and be able to best maintain it. He's got a few years to figure out a successor. But yeah this is mostly about the unique culture they have.

I thought he was giving away 99% of his wealth?

> but to oversee their family's share in the enterprise

Not exactly, he's there to oversee the culture of Berkshire and ensure it's continuity. Buffett is donating all of his wealth (and has already donated $66B), so there isn't a fortune to protect.

Berkshire is an institution of sorts at this point, and requires strong stewardship to prevent enshittification (for lack of a better word).

But we have been told for a long time that Buffett was a very active Chairman.

But his family inheriting his ownership of the company contradicts his statements about estate taxes in that article. And passing the chairman position to his son may even be part of a plan to pass wealth to him that avoids estate taxes.

A lot of rich men, when younger, say that they will not leave so much of the wealth to their children. Then they get older and realize what other old men realized.

Yeah, the "upside" to nepotism is that, if you or your brother or your buddy did a good job raising the kid, you have someone who has had solid training for longer than it's possible for any other candidate to have had, and a better understanding of their character than you can get from interviewing another candidate a few times. Hiring Joe's kid is a no brainer, if you trust Joe, less risk of a really bad hire even if he doesn't turn out to be stellar.

The other downside of nepotism -- besides the risk that Joe did a shit job and won't admit it or maybe can't evaluate his kid objectively -- is that even if the kid is the bee's knees, a great hire, it's not really fair -- there's almost certainly other candidates who are just as good and trustworthy as Joe's kid but they can't compete with either Joe's kid. It doesn't really matter what sort of references or credentials a candidate can show you if you can serve as a reference for the other candidate. You can't really run a meritocracy like that.

>there's nothing wrong with leaving things to your kids to run.

where that's true or not, that's not what happened. this is more like "there's nothing wrong with trying to help your son in his career and getting him a job."

Berkshire Hathaway's market cap is a trillion, and Warren Buffet's net worth has never been close to that, i.e. it's not his company so he's not leaving it to his son to run.

You might admire Warren Buffet's acumen and think he'd be good at picking people, but all (for varying values of all) parents believe in their children so it's not easy to tell if you'd be getting his best advice in this case if you were another major shareholder in Berkshire.

    > Describing him just as a "a farmer" seems kind of ridiculous.

Not at all. From a New York Times article [1]:

    > In 1986, he began running a 400-acre farm north of Omaha that his father purchased for him.
    > Howard now manages a 1,500-acre farm in central Illinois that is owned by his family, and still operates the 400-acre farm in Nebraska.

1,900 acres is a lot of farm!

What surprises me more? He is a board member since 1993, but doesn't have a university degree. I am surprised that they did not send him to an executive MBA programme.

From that same NYT article:

    > Mr. Buffett, who goes by “Howie,” attended three colleges in the 1970s, Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.; Chapman College in Orange, Calif.; and the University of California at Irvine. He did not graduate from any of them.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/business/warren-buffett-s...

Rags to rags in three generations, don't forget. These people are not Warren Buffett and most likely do not share his skill, luck, and psychological investment.

Think you’re begging the question with that final phrase.